The Weight of Water
by Morgen86
Summary: A look at what could happen after Meredith falls over the edge. Set immediately after Walk on Water. MerDer.


_Okay, so...somebody asked very nicely and a few other people suggested it (and honestly, I'm very easily persuaded). Besides, it's Mer in the freaking water, people! My choices were pretty much stare blankly at the wall for the next several days and freak out about it, or write about it. The writing seems like the slightly saner choice. So yes, this is a version of what I think could happen after Walk On Water. Umm...obviously don't read it if you haven't seen 3.15. Let's see...what else? Well, it switches POV throughout the story, but that's labled pretty clearly in bold, so hopefully that won't be a problem. This feels a little bit different to me...not quite how I usually write. I'm not sure. I usually write with these incredibly obsessive ridiculous outlines, but I didn't use one for this. And so it just feels...different to me. Hopefully not crap, but we'll see I guess. (Seriously, I'm just unusually nervous about this piece, so I'm rambling in an even more wordy fashion than normal. So do ignore me. I'm going to be shutting up right...about...now.) And yeah, that's it. See, told ya I was shutting up. Enjoy! _

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_The weight of water, the way you taught me to look past everything I had ever learned  
The final word in the final sentence you ever uttered to me was love  
Please just save me from this darkness  
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**Meredith**

_I know five things: _

Somehow…I know them with an exquisitely painful, crystalline clarity. They're filling my mind with this insistent mocking burning--stuck on replay--forcing me to keep thinking when it would be so much simpler to just give up; just sink, just drift into that vague fog I can sense drawing near to me, an all encompassing invisible wave of blackness. But no, my mind keeps churning even more desperately than my limbs, as if thinking hard enough will keep my head above the water. Which, I suppose, is the goal here. Still, seeing as it's quite possible that these are to be my final thoughts, it'd be nice to have some small modicum of control over them. Believe it or not, I actually have a few things worth thinking of. Not many, but the few that are there…well, quality over quantity, right? The last time I thought I was going to die, (and yes, I fully grasp how sad it is that there's already been a _last _time, and now there's _this _time, but at least this time looks like it really is going to be the last time. Not that I'm thrilled with the looming prospect of my death, but at least I won't be so annoyingly repetitive in the future.) Still…the last time I thought I was going to die--fingers curling around the smooth metal of the bomb in a way that screamed death and emptiness into my mind--that last time, I thought of Derek. Actually, I didn't just think about him. I could think of nothing save for him, and that gaping hole in my memory that was supposed to be filled with our last kiss. Only now, our last kiss? It was this morning. And I can't keep my mind fixated on him no matter how desperately I try because…I know five things. Five things. That's all there is for me to think about. They're facts at random. Facts that manage to still exist in a world that is fast becoming nothing more cohesive than pain and wet and cold.

_1) Water feels like cement when you hit it falling backwards._

That was the first thing I learned. Right after that surprising moment that was tripping over the edge; a weightless rush of cold air speeding up past my body as I went down. And apparently, that sudden smack of pain that bloomed across my back, down to my feet, and up to wrap around my head was worth remembering. Or perhaps the memory isn't in my mind so much as it is in my still stinging body--red welts rising up angrily where the water turned solid. That moment of mingled shock and horror, interwoven with a blinding, breath-stealing burst of pain, has found a way to replay in my mind. Over and over. In slow motion. There's nothing…there's air. There's a moment of agony that radiates from my bones outward until I swear even my hair hurts. But, it's only a moment, a split-second of pain followed by an equally brief burst of utter blackness. Falling, pain, and darkness in this horrible circling order until my head finally finds its way back above the water, and I remember the second thought.

_2) I used to skip gym class in high school._

The uniforms were hideous; great gaping lengths of orange embossed with green. There was no point in changing. There was no point in even going in the locker room. Regular p.e., with its fill of wildly flying basketballs and towering sweaty boys barreling down the court, was bad enough. But swimming…it was infinitely worse. The pool was this long bone white rectangle filled with dingy water, the entire room humid and permeated by the rank mingling odors of endless amounts of chlorine and something that smelled a lot like mildew. Hiding out in the lunchroom, or wandering the halls--they were better alternatives. Better than spending forty-five minutes in this dim chamber of a room in the basement, where the only way to drown out the overpowering echo of voices was to plug your nose and plunge beneath the surface. Better than trying to fight the burning in your eyes from the chemical soup they called water when the instructor made you do laps in this giant tangle of adolescent limbs. Better than having to put up with the loud squealing afterwards in the locker room, from girls who were blonde and pink and giggly, about how the water had wrecked their hair unforgivably. Because oh my god, seriously, what a true tragedy. And so, I swam for a total of two days freshman year before I decided that nothing, not even my mother, would force me back into that pool. (Ironically, she's the one who kept me out of the water…in a way. I can forge signatures--hers at least--with an ease that probably looks damning. A mother as a doctor was a path out of anything in high school. Especially when the man who read the notes was this broad beefy sort of fool--his whole life revolving around teaching teenagers the basics of football and the backstroke--who didn't question words he couldn't pronounce.) Those two days, coupled with a single summer when I was…eight, I think, and forced into some sort of swim class that my mother only rarely remembered to send me to, they're all I really know about the water. Treading water…the motion is supposed to be like riding a bike. I think. In that pool, I could cling to the slick side wall and let my feet graze the rough bottom. I could tread water in brief spurts, floating on a surface that was almost glassy, and completely free of the waves that now come with frightening unpredictability, stealing oxygen and light and air from my lungs. Here there's nothing for my legs to connect with, nothing for my fingers to grasp for and hold. The water is this vast emptiness that seems to be suspended out to infinity beneath me, a bottomless well of darkness into which my limbs thrash, joints clicking painfully when they push as hard as they can only to find no resistance whatsoever. Somehow, my head is still above the surface most of the time. I'm swallowing more air than water, but it's hardly reassuring because all I can see above the waves is the grungy rising wall of the docks. I seem to be slipping further and further from it, and I can hardly figure out how to hold my head above the water, let alone swim back towards the dark wall and its promise of solid ground. That's all there is to see; a promise of salvation that is becoming increasingly remote. That, and the gray-white nothingness of the sky overheard, mirroring the plunging void beneath me.

And the ferryboat.

Derek has a thing for ferryboats. I forgot to ask him when I saw him…if he cared that it was burnt. If he liked the ferryboat a little less now that he saw how charred and broken it was. I wish I had asked because, somehow, it feels important, and inexplicably devastating if he doesn't like them anymore. The ferryboat's burning, and I get to watch it as I die. Before I die… I'm not sure how this works, how the order of things goes. I've never done this before. Obviously. You only get to die once, right? I think I'm laughing bitterly at that, but maybe I'm just choking on the water. Either way, the ferryboat's there. It's company in an odd sort of way. I'd rather have Derek though. He can swim. He'd know how to fight the water back to the docks. I'd even let him save me, just this once. If he could just save me…

_3) I thought about dying in the bathtub this morning._

I didn't lie to Izzie. I didn't try to drown myself. Not really. But the possibility of staying underwater forever, of laying there and never coming back up, it was there. It felt soft and hazy, almost safe. The water was this cool liquid veil; cradling me, and covering me, and blotting out the world. It would've been easy to just not bother coming back up. So easy. Somehow, it wasn't frightening then, not like it is now. Then it was tempting and seductive, turning the burning in my lungs into something intoxicating. I could vanish. I could give in to the feeling that's been taking over my life, and just stop. Gone. Nothingness. In the blink of an eye, a body in the tub, and then…_nothing_. My mother wouldn't miss me. Not that she remembers me in the first place, but, even if she did, I don't think she would miss me. Maybe there would be a brief pang of loss, but it would probably be weighed down by her disappointment in my inability to save myself. She would never drown herself in the bathtub, and if she were in the water now, she would swim. She would save herself. She wouldn't be stuck gasping for air, clinging to the rapidly fading possibility that someone would come to save her. And I shouldn't need saving. I'm a surgeon…saving is in my blood and my hands and every corner of my mind. I'm the rescuer. I'm not supposed to be this pathetic girl, trying to convince myself that someone saw me fall, that maybe, that little girl will speak, and someone will bother to listen. Someone will bother to believe in her. But, life doesn't work that way. At least my life doesn't. There are no shining knights, and nobody ever bothers to even notice the little girl, let alone listen to her. And nobody's going to notice that I'm gone. Not for hours, probably. It's chaotic up there, and I could have easily gone back to the hospital with a patient. I'm going to die alone, and nobody will even know. I want to be afraid, but all I can think about is how completely I'm vanishing. Maybe it will take days or weeks. Maybe months, or a year or two at most… But eventually, I'll be barely more than a shadow in memory. I want to believe that someone will miss me; that, if I die, I'll leave more than an empty space. And well…Cristina will miss me, for awhile, although she'll be resolutely silent about it. And Derek will too. But they'll move on. Life always moves on. It always keeps going and turning and moving, and somehow I'm always just stuck in place; becoming more and more muted. And maybe that's a good thing. Maybe Derek will find someone who can believe in the happily ever after. I wish I could. I wish I knew how to be that person for him. I've wished for a lot of things though, and they rarely come true. Derek and I getting a second chance after Addison; that was the only wish that ever came completely true. And it's the only thing I wish I wasn't about to lose.

_4) My mother's heart surgery was probably postponed._

This is what I meant about pointless thoughts. My legs feel like they're slowly turning to lead; two weights strapped to my body to pull me down. Everything's cold, with the air biting my face and making me shiver whenever I manage to bob up high enough for my entire head to break the surface. But that's happening less and less frequently. I don't know how I'm going to keep on moving for much longer, and every second is this desperate struggle to fill my lungs with oxygen instead of water. I have more important things to worry about than whether my mother has started screaming at the nurses yet, or if today's one of those days were she simply sits there, staring blankly at the wall. I wonder if they're even going to bother to tell her that her surgery's been postponed because every OR is filled with a body pulled out of the ferryboat. Telling her would be pointless. (Telling her that her daughter is dead would also be pointless. She won't know me.) Everything with her is pointless though. I can't remember a single conversation with my mother that ended the way I wanted it to, that didn't leave me with a bitter taste in my mouth. Somebody always started yelling--usually her, but sometimes me. But then, people never change. Not really. She woke up after five years, and I went walking around just cradling this foolish hope in the back of my mind that maybe she'd finally see me. But she didn't even try to look. I let myself sink a little deeper into the water, let my arms stop struggling so hard. She didn't even try to see me. And suddenly, I stop trying quite as hard myself, and a wave laps clear over my face, blocking out the air for a long moment. I thought I'd finally found something good, that it meant something that I was happy with Derek. That to have something that fills you up until you feel as if you're shining and golden within--light as air and floating perfectly--that to have that kind of love meant something. I never would've guessed it was ordinary. I never would've guessed it was disappointing. But I guess it is because I'm drowning, and that love can't save my life. He isn't here. He's saving someone else. And all it does is turn what I know is my last breath into something infinitely bitter. I'm never going to see Derek again, and thinking about that hurts so much that I almost wish that I never even knew his name.

Too bad. My mind won't stop screaming it at me.

If only they'd found a way to take my mother into surgery anyway. Both of us going under simultaneously in our own way. I think I would've enjoyed such an absurd parallel.

_5) It's a cliché…I think, but you're supposed to run away from the light._

Isn't that what happens in the movies? Up on the screen there's someone struggling for their life through unconsciousness, slipping closer and closer to death, and somehow, a voice of some loved one enters whatever tunnel they're spiraling into. It tells them to turn and run away from that pure white glowing halo of light; to fight their way back into life. And it works. Every freaking time. The music swells, and love is enough to save the day, to stave off death. It's why I rarely watch movies--stupid rules like that. They don't even hold true under the weight of water. Because now, there's a light overhead--white and blue and wavering--and I'm moving away from it. But the world changes in the water, and darkness is no longer the tunnel into life. What leads to life is that faint glow of the sky above me. I can still make it out through the murky layers of the waves, and despite the harsh stinging in my eyes from keeping them open wide to the water.

But the light is growing more and more distant.

My legs drag me downward. They've suddenly become too heavy, too tired, too sore. I give one last desperate kick in an attempt to push myself towards the surface, but all that remains of my strength can barely manage to move my foot. It's not enough to make my legs propel me back upwards into that light. I wish it were, but…it's just not enough. Nothing ever is. And so I let my body droop and give in, my arms drifting over my head as the water suddenly turns me weightless. It's cool against my skin, and it would almost be pleasant were it not for the way that my lungs are burning. It's worse than the feel of tequila flowing like fire down my throat. This burns deep in my belly, and shoots straight out to fill every inch of me. It runs through my veins--not just like fire--but filled with this black twisted fear that forces my mouth back open despite my better judgment.

Desperately, I gasp for air and find only water. It floods me completely until I'm not sure where I end and it begins, or if we're even separable anymore. I think I'm coughing, or trying to. I suppose it's more like choking here, beneath the surface. Maybe this is dieing. I don't know. But eventually, my body stops convulsing. It stops trying to fight the water, and just takes it in like a human sponge. It doesn't matter anymore. It's easier this way. I've found that hazy border that comes moments before sleep, and I linger there, staring blankly at the water surrounding me. That last sliver of daylight is disappearing above me, snuffed out and plunging me into darkness.

I used to know five things, but I don't anymore. Everything is fading away. Everything is vanishing.

_All that's left to know is darkness. _

**Derek**

There's something wrong with Meredith. It's not just because of the bath thing, although the day isn't supposed to start with pulling my girlfriend out of the tub. It's weird…I can't quite put it into words, but that look she gave me when I pulled her out--that indulgent little half smile--was full of the knowledge that she wasn't just taking a bath. No matter how many times she says it was just a bath, it wasn't. She knows it, and she knows that I do to. And the result is this strange almost angry version of Meredith, who's suddenly putting up walls where we didn't used to have any. I find myself trying not to mind the haunted look in her eyes. It's a wan deathly light--pale and chilling--that I've seen flare up before only rarely, usually if someone referenced her mother. But now that her mother is in the hospital, it's lived there behind her eyes for two days straight. It's not just that something's wrong. It's more than that…as if something crucial has fallen out of place and gotten lost; a keystone that she's collapsing without. I could help her if she would just talk. I'd do whatever she needed to help her get through this thing with her mother…whatever it takes. But she's resolutely silent about it--determined for it to mean nothing at all. Meredith favors silence and slipping away; to bury anything painful as deep as possible, and just look away until it vanishes. I think she'd hide herself if she knew how, and I'm starting to think that she is trying to find a way.

I slam the door to an ambulance shut, turning back around to face the wreckage again, my eyes quickly scanning over the sea of people. I promised Bailey I'd keep an eye out for her interns, but I don't see a single one of them. Most importantly, I don't see Meredith. I don't know why that's so unsettling. She's short and small; more than half the people here are big enough to hide her completely from view. Still…seeing her would be reassuring. After this morning, there's a part of me that feels vaguely uneasy whenever she's out of my sight. A stretcher is wheeled by directly in front of me, bearing a man with obvious head trauma, and I shake myself free from searching for her. She's fine… Of course she's fine. If Meredith knew how desperately I was just scanning the crowds for her, she would roll her eyes and tell me to stop babying her. She'd tell me that she can take care of herself.

"What've we got?" I ask the woman pushing the stretcher, managing to distance myself enough from worrying about Meredith to speak coherently.

"He took a pretty heavy blow just above the right temple. Still conscious though," she says flatly, shifting out of my way as I lean forward to examine him. My body falls instantly into the routine it's spent years learning, and I find my eyes flitting back up again and again, scanning the crowd even as my hands keep moving. It soon becomes a rhythm; moving from one patient to the next, bandaging wounds, helping to heave stretchers up into ambulances, yet still always looking. Three patients later I haven't spotted so much as a flash of that familiar blonde ponytail, and the absence of Meredith is starting to knot my stomach. I'm halfway to the fourth stretcher when suddenly, my feet stop. The world keeps moving around me in a wild frantic blur of color and sound, but I just stop. Because suddenly I'm seeing straight through the crowd to a tiny little child with blonde hair in braids.

_Are you good? 'Cause I've gotta get this girl to triage… Yeah, she's good. She's just lost._

Meredith's voice swims back into my mind as the little girl's eyes seem to lock dead onto mine, and I recognize her. It's that same girl who was clinging desperately to Meredith under an hour ago, only now she's standing utterly alone--not moving in the slightest--dwarfed by the throng surrounding her. She's lost again, and somehow…that terrifies me. Meredith's been a lot of things lately that I don't understand, but I do know her well enough to know that she wouldn't just abandon the child like that, handing her off to nothing more than frightening solitude in a sea of injuries. If she was going to take the child to triage, she would, but the tents are clear on the other side of the scene. The stretcher to my left that I'd been heading towards quickly fades from my mind, rapidly becoming unimportant, and I turn to force my way through the swarm of people until I reach the child.

She pulls back slightly, wrapping her arms close around herself as she stares up at me, her eyes growing painfully wide. I lean forward, resting my hands on my knees, and offer her a smile. "Hey there," I try gently, but she just blinks--pale eyelashes sweeping slowly down to her cheeks and back up again. "Do you know where Meredith went?" Instinctively, I turn and look over my shoulder once more, hoping to see her walking towards me. But again there's nothing more than the faceless pulsing mass of the injured, and when I turn back to the child, her face is still as blank as before. "Umm…the lady," I clarify, shaking my head. "The nice lady you were with before, do you remember her?"

I don't realize I'm holding my breath until her tiny blonde head nods up and down, and I feel myself exhale in a sudden heavy gasp. "Good," I continue, nodding encouragingly. "She's my friend, and I can't find her. Do you know where she went?" The child's eyes widen further still at that, and her mouth drops open as if about to speak. But, instead of an answer, her teeth come down to clamp hard against her lower lip, and she spins around, suddenly taking off at a run away from me. Heaving a frustrated sigh, I curse and straighten up again, my eyes still scanning the crowds for Meredith. And, once again…nothing. There's nothing. It's as if she's vanished. I turn back around, zeroing in on the pale head of the girl with her braids trailing out behind her, and I start running before she vanishes too. It's not really a conscious decision--my feet simply start moving--propelling me forward to follow the child. I hope I'm simply being paranoid, but I can't shake the feeling that has settled deep in the pit of my stomach. Something just doesn't seem right. And so I double my speed, never taking my eyes from the back of the girl's head as I jostle through the crowd, until finally she comes to a sudden stop; freezing just as quickly as she'd taken off.

She turns back expectantly, her eyes finding mine, and I realize she wasn't running away. She was leading me. I walk the final steps towards her as I catch my breath. We've come to the edge of the docks with the water stretching out infinitely blue before us. It's quieter here, as if this stretch of land lays just beyond some invisible line, separated from the cries and the bustling behind me. My eyes quickly scan the area, coming to land on the form of a man stretched out on the ground. He's trembling slightly as he mutters to himself, his body covered by a blue jacket that matches my own. I cross over to him in two steps, stepping around the jumbled mess of one of the hospital's med kits. Bending down beside him to find the ID badge on the coat seems somehow unnecessary; the knowledge that I'll lift the plastic to find Meredith's face smiling up at me feels stronger than a simple hunch. But I do it anyway, frowning as I read 'Dr. Grey' printed on the card beneath the familiar picture of her.

"Sweetheart," I say, turning around just as soon as I read Meredith's name. The girl's still standing there, and this time she nods her head. It doesn't make sense. Meredith wouldn't leave both the child and the man unattended. The back of my mind floods with fear that I can't quite explain, my stomach clenching into a thousand knots as I kneel back down in front of the child. "Did she go to get help for that man?" I ask, doing my best to keep the worry swelling within me out of my voice. Again, the child's answer is silence, endless silence and wide staring eyes. Looking away, I run a hand through my hair, fighting off another frustrated sigh, and when I turn back to her, she's shaking her head fiercely. "No?" My frown deepens, and the girl just keeps shaking her head, her lower lip jutting out and trembling slightly. "Hey…" My hands reach out to clasp around her tiny ones, squeezing them tightly, and she freezes as soon as I touch her. She's staring straight into me, and her eyes suddenly seem sad or scared, or maybe both… "It's gonna be okay," I promise quietly, giving her hands another squeeze. "I just need you to tell me where she went, where Meredith went. Can you do that?"

Once more her response is an empty wordless stare, but this time it's accompanied by the faintest nod of her head. She pulls her hand from mine, stretching her slender hand out in front of her. One finger is extended, and my throat constricts as I follow the line straight past the edge of the docks, and out to where there's nothing more than water. "She went into the water?" I ask, already straightening up, and no longer bothering to hold back the fear from my voice. Another nod of her head--finger still pointing out into the emptiness of the waves--and I'm moving away from her until I'm standing at the very edge. The water's dark and unbroken below me. If she went down there, it swallowed her whole. "Okay…just wait here," I call over my shoulder; the last thing I'm able to manage that approaches a coherent thought. Because, Meredith? She can't be in the water.

Except that she is.

I don't know why I'm so certain. I'm simply filled with this overpowering unshakeable certainty that has me shedding my jacket, and diving from the dock without another moment's hesitation. Slicing past the surface with a cold splash, I'm vaguely aware that I've just submerged and ruined several hundred dollars worth of electronics in the form of my phone and pager. But it's a brief bizarre flicker of a thought, and the next second is full of nothing more than my head breaking back up above the water. Everything is just as empty down here as it was up on the docks. The water's choppy, the waves coming stronger than I'd expected, and there's still not the slightest sign of Meredith. And so I fill my lungs with oxygen--gasping as much and as fast as I can--before turning my body once more to plunge deeper into the water.

I force my eyes open past the initial sting, my fear serving to quickly blot out the discomfort as my legs kick and propel me deeper. Everything's dark and murky, and I don't know where to look. How do you find a tiny woman in a body of water big enough to make a ferryboat look insubstantial? I have no idea save for the simple answer that you find her. You have to find her. I _have_ to find Meredith. I don't know how to climb back up into the world without her. And so I swim deeper and deeper, turning my head frantically to search the shadowy water for any sign of her, coming across nothing to break the continual span of wet gloom and shade. I don't know how long I've been looking--just seconds, or over a minute already. Time seems to flow differently down here, but everything's starting to tighten within me, and I know I'm running out of air. I keep swimming; not wanting to lose the distance I've traveled and waste precious seconds returning to the surface to breathe. Because, wherever Meredith is, she isn't breathing either, and she hasn't been breathing for a lot longer than me. The thought fills me with a new rush of fear, and I swim a little further, a little deeper. But eventually my head is throbbing with a sharp and steady rhythm, and I can't deny the knowledge that going much longer without oxygen will only serve to drown myself. Reluctantly, I turn over in the water, pushing out with my legs to propel myself back towards the surface as fast as I can.

And as I do, I swear I feel the edge of my foot brush against something simultaneously soft and solid. As rapidly as I turned towards the glimmering light overhead, I turn back to the darkness, pushing downward as blind desperation makes me forget the need to breathe. The shadows are deep down here, the world turning endlessly murky. And yet, through that haze, I finally see something pale white and recognizable. There's a slender hand with limp fingers stretching towards me, the skin ashen and almost ghostly. And that hand…it's attached to a body I recognize, a body that I can see perfectly even with my eyes closed. It's Meredith. Her hair has escaped from its ponytail to billow around her, obscuring her face behind a dark wavering veil. She's just drifting there…strangely peaceful; as if the water that's claiming her as it's own is cradling her. But, in the next instant, I'm deep enough to fit my arms beneath hers as I pull her limp body close to mine.

My lungs feel on fire by now, and the light that marks the world above seems infinitely far away. Meredith weighs barely anything, but every inch of me is exhausted, and the water adds a foreign heaviness to her slight body. Each kick of my legs feels as if it takes hours to complete, and yet propels us forward no more than a shadow of an inch. It's endless and torturous, and only the knowledge that it's Meredith in my arms manages to force my body onward. The light seems to fade even as I move towards it--my head close to spinning--and I swear everything goes black for an instant, before my lungs fill suddenly with sharp relief. I sputter and gasp, my mouth gaping wildly at the air around me as I finally breathe in again. The rush of oxygen brings with it a new burst of strength, and I hold Meredith's head out of the water. But it simply lolls forward, limp and lifeless as it comes to rest against my shoulder.

She can't be dead.

The thought is overpowering…she can't be dead. I found her in the water against all odds, and it can't end there. I push her halfway up onto the dock before hoisting myself up with my arms, and lifting the rest of her over. She's frighteningly limp, and the lashes of her closed eyes form heavy shadows against her pale skin. Brushing her hair aside, my fingers search for a pulse. Her skin is slick and slippery from the water, frighteningly cold beneath my touch. And there's nothing there. Aside from the droplets rolling down the column of her neck…there's nothing; no movement, no motion, no sign of life. Just nothing.

"Meredith…" I plead, her name escaping from my lips despite the knowledge that she won't hear me. The world seems to be screaming blinding white noise in my ears; something ripe with terror as I force myself to my knees, the heels of my hands finding the center of her chest, and coming down hard, sending water spilling from her mouth. I've done this countless times without any thought at all. CPR can be an almost daily occurrence at the hospital. It's just another part of the routine. At least, it used to be. There's nothing routine at all about this; about staring down at every beautiful curve of Meredith's face while her body lies lifeless beneath mine. I'm not supposed to press my mouth to hers and have it elicit no response. It's horribly at odds with every other time our lips have come together. Her teeth are supposed to come biting down hard, tugging and pulling to open my mouth, so that her tongue can wind its familiar path towards mine. Her hands are supposed to tangle in my hair to pull me closer, and she's supposed to moan my name in this sound that's low and soft and absolutely perfect. Only all I get now is silence. Her lips give beneath mine as I breathe into her, but they don't respond.

Straightening up to find the center of her chest once more, I do my best to blot out the knowledge of just how rarely this works. I'd give my right arm for a defibrillator right now, but all I have to save her with are my own hands. Time starts moving in strange disjointed bursts; my body feeling as if it's operating in slow motion while my mind catapults headlong with dizzying speed. Every thought I've ever had of Meredith seems to want to resurface right now, and my mind is filled with her. I can see her at Joe's the very first night I met her, and remember the way she laughed and pushed me into her house without ever bothering to find out my name. And every day from that night through to now is suddenly humming vividly within my mind, providing me with flashes of her that are alive and vibrant, in stark contrast to the limp shell of Meredith that's spread now on the rough surface of the docks. I can see the disbelief and slow horror in her eyes when she first met Addison, and hear her voice rise to yell at me. Every memory of the months that followed is exquisitely painful, when I subsisted solely on stolen moments with her. And I can see the end to that at prom, and remember how utterly perfect it felt to finally taste her again, rediscovering how flawlessly her body fits together with mine. She can't die. Not now while the time we've spent together and happy is outweighed by the time we've spent apart. We need years together, not just months. We need a lifetime.

"Please," I murmur, my eyes starting to sting wildly at the corners as fear swells up once more within me. This can't be happening. She can't be dieing. "Meredith, don't do this," I beg. I know there are parts of her that are dark and broken, that curl innately towards death, but she held a bomb in her hands and lived. She flew backwards through the explosion, and still she lived. She can't lie here in my arms now and die. My hands keep forcing her chest down as I tear my eyes from her face, no longer able to look at it without feeling a wealth of broken sobs well up at the base of my throat as tears blur my vision and mingle with the water that still drips from me. I shake my head fiercely, and as I do, my gaze lands on a familiar figure. The little girl with the blonde hair is still standing there, her eyes wide as she stares at me. She's utterly alone, and as silent as Meredith, their faces sharing an uncanny lack of expression. I want to tell her to turn away, or to reassure her somehow, but I don't seem to have a voice anymore. Instead, I summon what energy I have, and force the corners of my mouth up into what I'm hoping is a comforting smile. I doubt it's much more than a brutally pained grimace, but as my hand moves once more to Meredith's throat, the child smiles back. It's a tentative little shiver of her lips, but it's there. And even as it flickers across her face, I feel something faint beneath my fingertips. Starting in disbelief, my eyes flash back to Meredith as my fingers shift and search, almost not daring to believe what I'm feeling.

Only there's no denying it--it's there. It's a tiny shred of a pulse, but it's there. "Meredith," I whisper, a dazzling surge of hope rushing through me as I lean forward to find her mouth again, breathing air into her lungs. "You can do this. Please…you can do this for me. I know you can. You can live." My world melts into nothing more than a string of whispered pleas to her that spill from my lips in between breaths, my fingers continually dancing over her neck, keeping careful track of her renewed pulse. "Please…I love you. Please," I murmur, pulling my lips up from hers once more only to feel her spasm suddenly beneath me. Her small hand stretches out, and I swear my heart turns inside out as I fit my hand to hers, and her fingers move weakly yet surely to entwine with my own. "Mer," I try, raising my voice. "Meredith, come on." And then she's coughing, her entire body jerking, and I reach out to turn her so that the water spluttering from her lips doesn't simply roll back down her throat. Her eyelids flutter once before flying wide open--vibrantly green against her ashen face--and darting about wildly.

"Meredith," I moan, falling forward until my forehead rests on the ground beside her. She's still coughing and shaking, her eyes terrified and uncertain, and staring straight up at the sky. The desire to just give into the relief within me and weep is overwhelming. I want to collapse and cling to her, but I force myself to sit back up, swaying slightly due to this stunning feeling of utter disbelief. _She's alive_. Still, even though she's alive, she's not okay yet. She's not breathing properly; every gasp she makes for air is full of the sound of her coughing, and she starts shaking her head frantically as her green eyes darken with panic. "Hey…hey, shhh…" I whisper, running my hands up to the nape of her neck to hold her still. "Just try and breathe. I'm here, okay? You're okay…" Leaning down until there's barely two inches between us, I stare into her eyes and they lock with mine, holding as fast as if a physical bond existed between them. Her eyes looked haunted in the morning, but now I can't place their color. It's as if she's utterly naked in a way that has nothing to do with the amount of clothing covering her body. There's a raw almost primal light beneath the green, as if something instinctive within her is ordering her to cling to life and fight. But there are layers of something infinitely dark as well, reminding me that even though she's out of the water, she's far from whole. "Meredith, please," I beg, trying to will her to be okay. "I love you." We don't say that often, the two of us. It's sort of simply understood. There's this vague knowledge that I have in the back of mind that if she feels smothered, she'll flee. She'll either draw into herself or flat-out run; the idea of living without walls around her soul not being something that comes easily to her. But now, I can't keep the words from flowing over and over from my lips, and I don't even want to try. Because I love her, and I almost lost her, and so I keep begging her until finally, _finally_, she stops coughing and simply gasps in air. "That's it," I say instantly, nodding my head encouragingly as tears drip down from my eyes to splash against her cheeks.

Lifting her softly, I pull her into my arms, cradling her trembling body against mine. Her mouth is warm and pressed gasping against the wet shirt of my scrubs, and as I hold her, she lets out the smallest most pathetic whimper I've ever heard. "Just breathe Mer," I urge, wrapping her even further in my arms as I try to give her whatever little is left of the warmth in my body after submerging it beneath the waves. "You're gonna be fine." And, in the next instant, she's sobbing--her body still somewhat in shock--her fingers clutching at my scrubs as she weeps. But she's exhausted, and so her crying doesn't last long; pure lack of energy cutting it off before she's barely started.

"You…" she gasps in an almost inaudible ghost of her former voice, blinking as she moans, and turns to stare up at me. She swallows hard, still sucking in air with this violent sort of desperation, before trying to speak once more. "Der…"

"Shhh," I say quietly, laying a finger to her lips. And as I do, they respond to my touch just the way they're supposed to; giving in softly before flexing into this tiny shadow of a smile. "Don't speak. Don't try to speak. Just breathe." I think she nods her head, or tries to at least. It's barely more than a faint flicker of motion; her body already starting to give back in to the coupled stress of trauma and exhaustion. Still, she sucks in another rattling breath, and I promise myself she'll make it through this. She has to. "You're gonna be okay…"

**Meredith**

Something's different…something I can't quite place. Everything is still all encompassing darkness, but the heaviness that came with it is drifting away and falling off in layers. I want to try to think, and figure out what's happening, but the world is this hazy blur that I can't comprehend. I don't know how to. I don't know why the smooth wet blackness that was holding me close is receding, and leaving me with nothing more than something cold and sharp. All I know is that there's this burning filling my throat that I swear isn't from the water, and before I can figure it out, my body jerks convulsively. And as it does, I know. I'm laying on the ground, spread out over something strong and solid. I'm out of the water. _I'm alive_.

The leaden darkness that I had thought was death is gone, and I'm awake again. I'm alive. That thought echoes through me over and over, and it's positively thrilling. Somehow, I'm back on the docks, and a light that feels almost painfully bright is burning through my closed eyelids. I'm vaguely aware that my body is jerking and shaking, coughing and desperately struggling to breathe, and it's at odds with the strange disjointed calmness that's filling my mind. The truth is simple. I'm not supposed to be alive. There's no way anyone should've been able to find me in the water. My mind starts trying to speed up and piece reality back together, but the near violent jerking of my body finally halts my thoughts. Somehow, a voice that I think I know winds its way through the fog that was blotting out my mind, and I swear my fingers are threaded close with someone else's. Summoning what energy I can away from everything that's siphoning off into shaking, I force my eyelids apart.

There's so much color around me that it almost feels blinding. It's as if I've forgotten the way the world looks, and I'm being suddenly forced to relearn every shade. It's frightening, and close to too much; my eyes darting wildly until they suddenly latch onto a face I recognize. The vague familiarity to the voice that I can't quite hear comes streaming forward to pair up with his face. _Derek… _I try to make my lips move to form his name, but I can't do anything other than cough. I think he looks concerned, but I can't hold still long enough to tell. My entire body is vibrating and shaking; trying to find a way to breath. I'm surrounded by air--the sky stretching infinitely clear overhead--but everything within me is still of the water. I want the water to go away, but…it doesn't. Somehow, I'm drowning on dry land.

There's nothing to hold on to, nothing to ground me, until suddenly all there is to see is Derek's eyes. They're straight above me, feeding into mine, and…that helps. It's a point to focus on. His eyes aren't confusing. His eyes aren't some strange new color I have to relearn. They're just as I remember them; deep and blue, with a light that alternates between smoldering and something filled with an endless calm. And finally, by staring into them, I can hear his voice properly. It floods my ears as this long and rambling stream of words that sounds more broken than anything I've ever heard before; begging and pleading melding together with promises, and the word love echoing over and over through everything. And somehow, while falling up into his eyes and his voice, I start breathing again. I'm no longer coughing and choking for air, but sucking it in in these pure, deep unadulterated gasps, oxygen rushing forward to fill me.

"That's it," he murmurs, his voice hushed and heavy as his face breaks out into a wide smile that's brighter than the lights I thought were blinding me. Only, Derek's smile doesn't hurt. It simply fills me along with the air, even as something wet drips down to hit my face. It takes me a moment to figure out just what it is. My mind still feels slow and churning, exhausted from continually having to remind my body to keep breathing. There's this split-second flicker of irrational panic in which I somehow think I'm back in the water before I suddenly realize that Derek's crying. Tears are trailing down every familiar line on his face as he lifts me like a doll, cradling me in arms that are strong and sturdy and infinitely safer than the embrace found beneath the surface of the waves.

Time seems to jolt forward; hurtling me through breathing against him, and into a sudden onslaught of tears I didn't feel being summoned. I want to talk to him, to ask him how he found me in the water…how he knew. I try once more to speak, and--without the hindrance of coughing--I manage some semblance of a sound. I'm halfway to forming Derek's name when I'm interrupted by the gentle pressure of his finger against my lips, and I stop, realizing in a cold rush just how much effort it took to try to speak. "You're gonna be okay," he promises me, and I'm trying really hard to believe him. I start to smile up at him once more, but I'm cut short by a sudden shiver that pulses violently through me. I can hear my teeth start chattering together, and the sound is worse than a hangover; a thousand hammers striking inside my head. Everything is so cold, and it comes with a heaviness that starts to mute the world that was painfully bright just moments ago. I blink once quickly, and then a second time…much slower. The third time my eyelids meet, but they don't separate again. They simply stay shut. I shudder slightly, wishing for a way to be warm. The sound of Derek's voice diminishes into a drone once more; no longer something that I can completely focus on. Everything is just this soft harmony of sounds and faded touches, lulling me back towards sleep.

But then my body jerks violently, and my eyes reflexively open again into tiny slits. I struggle through the dreary haze that's settling over me to find Derek shaking me, his eyes darkened with worry. "Mer, stay with me," he urges, his hand squeezing mine so that I feel a sudden pressure amidst the numbness pervading my body. I try to nod my head, but I think the motion's pretty much imperceptible. My eyes shut once more, and sound blurs together. I can feel Derek turning away from me even as his arms keep me cradled close to his chest, and I swear he's shouting something at someone. I don't know what though. I don't know how long I lay here struggling to do what he said, but the pull on me to sleep now feels even stronger than the call of the water that held me down. All I know is this vague tapestry of sound and voices and movement around me, a dizzying blur that's overwhelming, and makes me want to slip away. Before I can, I hear Derek's voice again, and I think it's saying something about a stretcher.

My eyelids flutter back open at that--panic filling me--and he looks down to catch me staring. "Hey it's okay," he soothes, his hand pulling softly through the tangled strands of my soaking hair. "I'm going to take you to the hospital." My eyes open wider at that, and Derek smirks slightly; not missing the faint glow of something indignant buried beneath the fear. He shakes his head, still stroking my hair. "Uh uh…don't even try to tell me that you're fine," he teases gently, a smile playing across his face. I think I'm managing to smile back at him. I hope I am. "But you're gonna be fine Mer," he continues as everything starts to go all hazy again until my world is suddenly filled with pain and motion, and a sudden coldness that I immediately hate.

I let out a strangled cry--my eyes flying wide open--as I realize in a rush why I'm so cold. I'm not in Derek's arms anymore, but on some stretcher. I'm surrounded by faces I don't recognize as unfamiliar hands travel over my body; doing things that my own hands know how to do, but which my mind is unable to string together into coherency at the moment. We're moving too quickly, and the voices blur again, and all I want is to go back to laying on the dock in Derek's arms. I could handle that. I can't handle this…whatever this is.

"Derek," I choke out, not caring that I'm wasting precious energy on speaking. It's worth it because he looms back into view, his face at my side in an instant.

"Meredith," he answers immediately, his hand pressing against my cheek before he turns back around to say something to one of the paramedics. I feel inexplicably cold when his eyes aren't on me during the brief and painful moment that is me being lifted into something dark that I can only assume is an ambulance. It's odd how desperately I wanted space from him this morning, and how I can't bear the idea of space from him now. Derek's been the one constant through the darkness. "No. Put her on oxygen," comes the sound of his voice, ordering someone around, and my eyes flutter back open. I hadn't even realized that they were closed. He crouches down beside me as we start moving, his voice once again whispering words to me that I'm having trouble making out as my eyelids swing as if on hinges, flirting with consciousness.

But then someone fits a mask over my face, and my lungs fill completely with oxygen in a way that I'd forgotten was possible. And suddenly, everything isn't so cold. Blankets come spreading up to cover me, and some of the bitter chill that was holding me close to immobile starts to seep away. I blink again, and this time I'm able to keep my eyes open. Derek's still beside me, and I lock my gaze on him. A thousand questions are burning through my mind, and I'm trying to find a way to put them all into my eyes.

"Hey," he murmurs, bending even closer to me, and pressing his lips against my forehead. He seems to be able to read some of the questions written in my eyes because he pulls back and smiles at me. "You're gonna make it Mer. You're gonna be just fine." His voice is calmer than before, and I realize I can concentrate on it without fading in and out anymore. Everything is still sort of hazy and hurting, but the sharp edge of panic and the unknown has evaporated. I manage a definite nod of my head, and Derek's hand reaches down to find my own. The time I spent in the water hasn't come close to fading from memory, but rather roars darkly in the back of my mind. And it would be so easy to drop back to wallow in the fear that lingers there; to let myself begin to drown again in a whole other way. Only, I don't fall back. I don't start slipping. I just stare up at Derek, and find something good there, something to hold on to.

My mother…she was wrong. What we have, what Derek and I have, it isn't ordinary. Ordinary would have been to drown. There's nothing ordinary about such a perfect alignment of fate or chance, or whatever the hell we're calling it now. There's nothing ordinary about him knowing and coming, and finding me in the water. This morning, death didn't sound so bad, but now… I know I don't know how to believe in happily ever after yet, but still, there's a hand holding mine that almost feels more familiar than my own, and I'm starting to think that maybe that's something worth living and fighting for.

It seems like an impossible truth, but…it's not. Love can save you from the darkness.

-----

_And yeah...that's about it. I'm thinking this is probably just a one-shot because I don't have any other ideas for this at the moment. However, if Shonda remembers that yes, she actually does love Mer/Der this Thursday and lets Der save Mer, then maybe this won't be completely out of sync with what happens, and I'll expand it. I honestly just don't know at the moment, so for now...let's call it a one-shot? Sounds good. What else? Umm...I'm not feeling much to ramble about. Meredith was dark and twisty in the water with lots of mommy issues, and Derek just loves her and wants to be there for her. He wants to be the one to save her, and...as much as Meredith wants to shut herself off and exist on her own with help from no one, she can't. Here...she physically can't without dieing because Derek has to drag her from the water and bring her back from very close to death. Without him, she'd be dead. And while that's an extreme example, she's got to learn that it's okay to need other people, and seeing as how Derek's the man she loves, there's nothing weak and ordinary about needing him sometimes. And that's sort of the realization she gets to at the end because come on...I love the Mer/Der. Near death experience needs to push them closer together, not pull them further apart. Now excuse me while I cross my fingers and hold my breath until Thursday in the hope that Derek really does get to save Meredith._

_So yep, that's all. Umm...The World Turned Over (my other actual story) will be updated a little bit later than usual because I just spent my weekend writing this instead of the next chapter to that. However, I shall try to neglect my homework as much as possible, and get another update up in a few days. Hee. Anyways, thanks so much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it! _


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